Mellow Mushroom Engages Mobile Audience with Summer Happiness

Atlanta-based pizza chain Mellow Mushroom wanted to drive sales and mobile engagement, so it teamed up with some big partners for its Summer Happiness campaign.

Since launching July 29, over 45,000 consumers have registered. It is active until August 31.

Mellow Mushroom has 154 units in 20 states. Its summertime partners include Coca-Cola, Live Nation and the American Music Awards.

In the Summer Happiness promotion, guests receive a ten-character Mellow Mushroom code when they purchase a qualifying Coca-Cola product at the restaurant. They can enter via text or through the microsite to win prizes like a VIP experience to the 2013 American Music Awards in Los Angeles in November. Over 6,000 instant win prizes are also available, including Live Nation Concert Cash and Mellow Mushroom gift cards.

“A lot of our brand is anchored in music,” says Annica Kreider, vice president of brand development for Mellow Mushroom. “We know this resonates with consumers.”

What’s more, the experience includes a Spin the Coke Bottle game, or “an in-store digital table top game where guests can interact and learn more about each other with a series of conversation starters and trivia questions, centered around music, Coca-Cola and Mellow,” the brand says.

“We positioned it as, ‘Do you really know who you’re sitting with?'” Kreider adds. “There are questions you can ask your tablemates, like, ‘If you’re on a desert island, what five albums would you bring?’ It’s not a hard sell, just an engaging, interactive game.”

Guests can also create and share Mellow Mushroom e-cards.

According to the brand, the campaign had over 22,000 registrants in the first week.

According to Meredith Hillman, vice president at digital, mobile and social engagement provider ePrize, that figure is a “great data point for Mellow Mushroom to understand its customers, who are very mobile focused.”

In addition, more than 20 percent of all registrants – or about 7,300 – scanned QR codes tied to the campaign and 95 percent of all registrants entered promotional codes via SMS, Mellow Mushroom says.

Hillman says QR code usage also demonstrates a mobile-savvy audience.

The brand first became aware of its highly mobile customer base when it realized more than 50% of its web traffic was coming from mobile channels, Kreider says. That was in June following a campaign that saw more mobile than microsite uploads.

In May, the brand teamed up with Dos Equis and its Most Interesting Man in the World around Cinco de Mayo, asking guests to take an interesting photo with a cutout of the Most Interesting Man. Photos were uploaded through Instagram or a microsite. Mellow Mushroom says about 75 percent of the 2,500 images were uploaded via Instagram.

“We knew then that our guests were highly mobile,” Kreider says.

Mellow Mushroom targets college-educated adults ages 35 to 49 who make over $100,000.

Marketers create personas to better understand their target audience and what it looks like. If marketers can understand potential buyer behaviors, and where they spend their time online, then content can be targeted more effectively.